The sheer size of the forex, or foreign exchange, market dominates all others — even the stock market. Every payment that crosses currencies contributes to its fluctuations and momentum. And without a centralized marketplace, forex activity buzzes practically without cease, with traders waking up and doing business everywhere, in every time zone. To get a piece of the action, you need a forex brokerage with best-in-class technology and stellar support.
The first step in becoming a successful day trader in the Forex market is simple, and it is not dissimilar to other trading strategies. As a beginner, it is advised to practice day trading with virtual money on a demo account, in order to get a feel for how Forex day trading works before committing to real money Forex trading. This may sound too simple, but it is vital.
Automated trading functionality: One of the benefits of Forex trading is the ability to open a position and set automatic stop loss and take profit levels, at which the trade will close. More sophisticated platforms should have the functionality to carry out trading strategies on your behalf, once you have defined the parameters for these strategies. A good trading platform will allow this level of flexibility, rather than requiring a trader to constantly be monitoring any trades.
When trading Forex, you'll see that both 'Bid' and 'Ask' prices are quoted. The bid price is the price at which you can buy the currency, while the ask price is the price at which you can sell it. If you are purchasing a currency in a trade, this is known as a long trade, and the hope is that the currency pair will increase in value, so that you can sell it at a higher price and make a profit on the difference.
In the forex market currencies trade in lots, called micro, mini, and standard lots. A micro lot is 1000 worth of a given currency, a mini lot is 10,000, and a standard lot is 100,000. This is different than when you go to a bank and want $450 exchanged for your trip. When trading in the electronic forex market, trades take place in set blocks of currency, but you can trade as many blocks as you like. For example, you can trade seven micro lots (7,000) or three mini lots (30,000) or 75 standard lots (750,000), for example.
Forex is a portmanteau of foreign currency and exchange. Foreign exchange is the process of changing one currency into another currency for a variety of reasons, usually for commerce, trading, or tourism. According to a recent triennial report from the Bank for International Settlements (a global bank for national central banks), the average was more than $5.1 trillion in daily forex trading volume.